June 7, 2021

Key pit production talking points; some progress in DC in killing LANL pit production; important article on co-optation and destruction of U.S. disarmament movement

Permalink for this letter (tomorrow). Please forward as desired. Prior letters to this New-Mexico-oriented list.
Previously (05/24/21): Key talking points, discussion outside the State Capitol this Thursday, May 27, noon, east side: massive expansion at LANL, new arms race, plutonium "pits" out the wazoo
Please endorse the Call for Sanity not Nuclear Production!
Do your interested New Mexico friends get these updates? To subscribe, send a blank email here. To unsubscribe, send a blank email here. 
Home page; Press releases; Bulletins
To subscribe to our main listserve (less frequent, more national and international content) send a blank email here. To unsubscribe send a blank email here.
Our blog (little used at present but this may change): Remember your Humanity. Twitter.
Contribute. Volunteer. Contact Greg or Trish.

Dear friends --

We hope this letter finds you all well.

You heard from us most recently last Tuesday (Administration budget for warhead cores ("pits") jumps again, as Biden team struggles with Trump's rushed "double-factory" plan, June 1, 2021).

Pit production is a crucial part of the proposed $2 trillion (pp. 6-13) that the Biden Administration is doing its part to spend on nuclear weapons over the next 30 years.

To summarize the pit situation afresh:

• The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) hopes to spend more than $10 billion on infrastructure and start-up costs to begin industrial pit production at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) over the next 6-8 years, and a billion or so every year after that for as long as LANL produces pits;

• Each pit LANL makes will cost in the neighborhood of $50 million; the Congressional Budget Office estimates (p. 14) every other part in a warhead including final assembly will cost $9 to $14 million; using LANL pits will double or triple overall warhead cost;

• Producing pits at LANL also requires building a factory in South Carolina but the reverse is not true, as the SC facility would suffice; producing pits at LANL will also require additional facilities at LANL;

• The estimated price tag for the SC factory has more than doubled to about $11 billion, and the more realistic schedule NNSA predicted in 2017 is now admitted again (p. 2 here: "2033 at the earliest"; slide 9 here: "2029-2036"; compare Hruby  testimony of 5/27/21 at 56:55, background provided at note 1 here);

• The only reason to proceed with pit production at LANL is to facilitate production of a brand-new warhead for silo-based missiles, which is altogether unnecessary;

• In short the Trump "dual-factory" pit plan is based entirely on contractor greed, geopolitical panic, engineering and management fallacies, and a desire to placate Democratic Party senators, led by Heinrich and at the time Udall, who wanted a pit factory at LANL.

Not just the Biden Administration, but we too have also been struggling with the "double pit factory" plan. We are making progress. Our analysis is gaining at least some adherents in the Administration and Congress. Some people are beginning to see that a dollar spent on pit production at Los Alamos is a wasted dollar, beyond a pilot production level.

There are NGOs which favor LANL for pit production. They are altogether wrong to do so -- wrong on policy, wrong on social justice, and wrong on environmental issues.

It's easy to say, and we have said many times, that "we don't want pit production anywhere," but that and $3.00 might buy a cup of coffee. (In fact we say that and much more: that the perceived need for pits is part of a paradigm of folly that will be fatal to the United States, should it persist; see pp. 4-7)

The key question concerns when pit production is to begin. Making pits at LANL is all about making them NOW, as soon as possible. That's really the only reason for government to invest in industrial pit production at LANL.

You might ask, as many do, what can I do to help bring this fiasco to an end?

Don't bother writing to New Mexico politicians. It won't work. The politics of begging is not going to help. It's just an expression of weakness -- especially if it comes from reliable Democrats.

Nothing will change much in New Mexico absent a great deal more visible, nonviolent, principled, disciplined discontent. (Violent discontent would change things all right -- very much for the worse for everybody, especially you. Don't go there! And beware provocateurs!)

Absent that social movement, elections aren't going to help either. Money and propaganda and parties choose candidates and winners, not citizens.

There is much that can be done, but we need to recognize that we ourselves are going to change along the way. That's all I want to say about that tonight.

On a related topic, Dave Lindorff has published an important article in Salon, "Peace-washing: Is a network of major donors neutralizing activism in the peace movement?" This is an entirely accurate, if also greatly understated, article. It is really just a glimpse. Other authors have also looked at this but not in such a recent, focused way. One cannot really understand what happened to the peace and disarmament movement in the U.S. without some appreciation of the phenomena Lindorff discusses. The political and institutional results of what Lindorff reveals is discussed here: "Stewards of the Apocalypse: an abridged history of U.S. nuclear weapons labs since 1989."

The same phenomena occur in the climate and energy fields, as many on this list can attest.

Stay tuned, be well, get ready, take heart.

Greg Mello, for the Study Group